Tracking the epidemiological trends of female breast cancer in Saudi Arabia since 1990 and forecasting future statistics using global burden of disease data, time-series analysis.

BACKGROUND: Female breast cancer stands as the prime type of cancer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), with a high incidence and mortality rates. This study assessed the burden of female breast cancer in KSA by analyzing and forecasting its incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). METHODS: We retrieved data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) about female breast cancer from 1990 to 2021. Time-series analysis used the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model to forecast female breast cancer statistics from 2022 to 2026. RESULTS: From 1990 to 2021, KSA reported 77,513 cases of female breast cancer. The age groups with the highest number of cases are 45-49 years, followed by 40-44 years, 50-54 years, and 35-39 years. The analysis also showed fewer cases in the younger age groups, with the lowest number in the less than 20-year-old age group. From 1990 to 2021, KSA reported 19,440 deaths due to breast cancer, increasing from 201 cases in 1990 to 1,190 cases in 2021. The age-standardized incidence rate/100,000 of breast cancer increased from 15.4 (95% confidence interval (CI) 11.2-21.0) in 1990 to 46.0 (95%CI 34.5-61.5) in 2021. The forecasted incidence rate of female breast cancer will be 46.5 (95%CI 45.8-46.5) in 2022 and 49.6 (95%CI 46.8-52.3) in 2026. The age-standardized death rate per 100,000 Saudi women with breast cancer increased from 6.73 (95%CI 6.73-9.03) in 1990 to 9.77 (95%CI 7.63-13.00) in 2021. The forecasted female breast cancer death rate will slightly decrease to 9.67 (95%CI 9.49-9.84) in 2022 and to 9.26 (95%CI 8.37-10.15) in 2026. DALYs increased from 229.2 (95%CI 165.7-313.6) in 1990 to 346.1 (95%CI 253.9-467.2) in 2021. The forecasted DALYs of female breast cancer will slightly decrease to 343.3 (95%CI 337.2-349.5) in 2022 reaching 332.1 (95%CI 301.2-363.1) in 2026. CONCLUSIONS: Female breast cancer is still a significant public health burden that challenges the health system in KSA, current policies and interventions should be fashioned to alleviate the disease morbidity and mortality and mitigate its future burden.

Synthetic Methods and Pharmacological Potentials of Triazolothiadiazines: A Review.

This review article examines the synthetic pathways for triazolothiadiazine derivatives, such as triazolo[3,4-b]thiadiazines, triazolo[5,1-b]thiadiazines, and triazolo[4,3-c]thiadiazines, originating from triazole derivatives, thiadiazine derivatives, or thiocarbohydrazide. The triazolothiadiazine derivatives exhibit several biological actions, including antibacterial, anticancer, antiviral, antiproliferative, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties. The review article aims to assist researchers in creating new biologically active compounds for designing target-oriented triazolothiadiazine-based medicines to treat multifunctional disorders.

Location and Time Aware Multitask Allocation in Mobile Crowd-Sensing Based on Genetic Algorithm.

Mobile crowd-sensing (MCS) is a well-known paradigm used for obtaining sensed data by using sensors found in smart devices. With the rise of more sensing tasks and workers in the MCS system, it is now essential to design an efficient approach for task allocation. Moreover, to ensure the completion of the tasks, it is necessary to incentivise the workers by rewarding them for participating in performing the sensing tasks. In this paper, we aim to assist workers in selecting multiple tasks while considering the time constraint of the worker and the requirements of the task. Furthermore, a pricing mechanism is adopted to determine each task budget, which is then used to determine the payment for the workers based on their willingness factor. This paper proves that the task-allocation is a non-deterministic polynomial (NP)-complete problem, which is difficult to solve by conventional optimization techniques. A worker multitask allocation-genetic algorithm (WMTA-GA) is proposed to solve this problem to maximize the workers welfare. Finally, theoretical analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed WMTA-GA. We observed that it performs better than the state-of-the-art algorithms in terms of average performance, workers welfare, and the number of assigned tasks.

Design, Synthesis, and Antimicrobial Evaluation of Novel Pyrazoles and Pyrazolyl 1,3,4-Thiadiazine Derivatives.

A novel series of pyrazolyl 1,3,4-thiadiazines 5a⁻c, 8a⁻c, 12, 15a⁻c, 17a⁻c, and 20 was prepared from the reaction of pyrazole-1-carbothiohydrazide 1a,b with 2-oxo-N'-arylpropanehydrazonoyl chloride, 2-chloro-2-(2-arylhydrazono)acetate, and 3-bromoacetylcoumarin. Moreover, the regioselective reaction of 5-pyrazolone-1-carbothiohydrazide 1a with 4-substituted diazonium salts and 4-(dimethylamino)benzaldehyde gave the corresponding hydrazones 21a⁻c and 22. The newly prepared compounds were characterized by spectroscopy and elemental analysis. Many new synthesized compounds showed considerable antimicrobial activity against tested microorganisms. Hydrazones 21a⁻c and 22 showed remarkable antibacterial and antifungal activities. 4-(2-(p-tolyl)hydrazineylidene)-pyrazole-1-carbothiohydrazide 21a displayed the highest antibacterial and antifungal activities with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values lower than standard drugs chloramphenicol and clotrimazole, in the range of 62.5⁻125 and 2.9⁻7.8 µg/mL, respectively.

New Potential Antimalarial Agents: Design, Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Some Novel Quinoline Derivatives as Antimalarial Agents.

A novel series of dihydropyrimidines (DHPMs) 4a-j; 2-oxopyran-3-carboxylate 7a,b; 1-amino-1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carboxylate 8; and 1,3,4-oxadiazole derivatives 12 with quinolinyl residues have been synthesized in fairly good yields. The structure of the newly synthesized compounds was elucidated on the basis of analytical and spectral analyses. In vitro antimalarial evaluation of the synthesized quinoline derivatives against Plasmodium falciparum revealed them to possess moderate to high antimalarial activities, with IC50 values ranging from 0.014-5.87 µg/mL. Compounds 4b,g,i and 12 showed excellent antimalarial activity against to Plasmodium falciparum compared with the antimalarial agent chloroquine (CQ).

Encapsulated Cell Dynamics in Droplet Microfluidic Devices with Sheath Flow.

In this paper we study the dynamics of single cells encapsulated in water-in-oil emulsions in a microchannel. The flow field of a microfluidic channel is coupled to the internal flow field of a droplet through viscous traction at the interface, resulting in a rotational flow field inside the droplet. An encapsulated single cell being subjected to this flow field responds by undergoing multiple orbits, spins, and deformations that depend on its physical properties. Monitoring the cell dynamics, using a high-speed camera, can lead to the development of new label-free methods for the detection of rare cells, based on their biomechanical properties. A sheath flow microchannel was proposed to strengthen the rotational flow field inside droplets flowing in Poiseuille flow conditions. A numerical model was developed to investigate the effect of various parameters on the rotational flow field inside a droplet. The multi-phase flow model required the tracking of the fluid-fluid interface, which deforms over time due to the applied shear stresses. Experiments confirmed the significant effect of the sheath flow rate on the cell dynamics, where the speed of cell orbiting was doubled. Doubling the cell speed can double the amount of extracted biomechanical information from the encapsulated cell, while it remains within the field of view of the camera used.

Modeling of Droplet Generation in a Microfluidic Flow-Focusing Junction for Droplet Size Control.

In this paper, we study the parameters that affect the generation of droplets in a microfluidic flow-focusing junction. Droplets are evaluated based on the size and frequency of generation. Droplet size control is essential for microfluidic lab-on-a-chip applications in biology, chemistry, and medicine. We developed a three-dimensional numerical model that can emulate the performance of the physical system. A numerical model can help design droplet-generation chips with new junction geometries, different dispersed and continuous phase types, and different flow rates. Our model uses a conservative level-set method (LSM) to track the interface between two immiscible fluids using a fixed mesh. Water was used for the dispersed phase and mineral oil for the continuous phase. The effects of the continuous-to-dispersed flow rate ratio (Qo/Qw) and the surfactant concentration on the droplet generation were studied both using the numerical model and experimentally. The numerical model was found to render results that are in good agreement with the experimental ones, which validates the LSM model. The validated numerical model was used to study the time effect of changing Qo/Qw on the generated droplet size. Properly timing when the flow rates are changed enables control over the size of the next generated droplet, which is useful for single-droplet size modulation applications.

Design, synthesis and docking studies of novel thiazole derivatives incorporating pyridine moiety and assessment as antimicrobial agents.

A novel series of substituted 4,6-dimethyl-2-oxo-1-(thiazol-2-ylamino)-1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carbonitrile derivatives 6, 9, 13, 15, and 17 was synthesized in a good to excellent yield from the reaction of 1-(3-cyano-4,6-dimethyl-2-oxopyridin-1(2H)-yl)thiourea with 2-oxo-N'-arylpropanehydrazonoyl chloride, chloroacetone, α-bromoketones, ethyl chloroacetate, and 2,3-dichloroquinoxaline, respectively. The potential DNA gyrase inhibitory activity was examined using in silico molecular docking simulation. The novel thiazoles exhibit dock score values between - 6.4 and - 9.2 kcal/mol and they were screened for their antimicrobial activities. Compound 13a shown good antibacterial activities with MIC ranged from 93.7-46.9 µg/mL, in addition, it shown good antifungal activities with MIC ranged from 7.8 and 5.8 µg/mL.

Assessment on post-harvest losses of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentem Mill.) in selected districts of East Shewa Zone of Ethiopia using a commodity system analysis methodology.

One of the main challenges facing Ethiopia today is to ensure food security for its rapidly growing population. Although Ethiopia's production is much lower than the national demand, there are high post-harvest food losses. In meeting a country's food demand, increasing production by itself is not enough unless what has been produced is properly managed. In line with this, extensive assessment of post-harvest losses of tomato along the supply chain and the associated factors were evaluated in four purposively selected districts of East Shewa Zone of Ethiopia. The assessment was made using Commodity System Assessment Methodology from "farm-to-fork" to investigate the status of post-harvest losses of tomato along the supply chain and the associated factors in the pursuit of recommending appropriate mitigation strategies. Information was gathered from a total of N = 408 sampled chain actors (producers to consumers) and related institutions. Results revealed that losses of tomato due to improper care and handling of the commodity regardless of its high production in the study area were common problems for all chain actors. A loss of 20.5%, 8.6%, 2.9%, and 7.3% at the producer, wholesalers, retailers, and hotel and café level was recorded respectively with a total loss of 39.3%. Total losses across districts ranged from 17.2-33.3. Field, transportation and market display were major critical loss points identified. Practices such as market fluctuation, lack of temperature management, no/poor sorting and mixed handling of the crop, carelessness on the loss prevention and its impact were identified among the common causes for observed losses. Therefore, creating awareness on the effect of all causes of food loss and minimizing economic loss is recommended. Moreover, affordable and appropriate technology adaptation is needed to reduce observed food losses across the districts.

Effect of beeswax and chitosan treatments on quality and shelf life of selected mango (Mangifera indica L.) cultivars.

Mango is one of the most economically important fruit facing greater problems in storage and transportation to long distance market because of its perishable nature. Evidence suggested that application of edible coatings is a key step to reduce loss of perishable commodities. In line with this, Beeswax and chitosan at different concentrations (0.5%, 1.5% and 2%), and two mango varieties (Apple and Tommy Atkins) were evaluated using completely randomized design (CRD) in three replications. Application of beeswax and chitosan at (2%) significantly reduced physiological weight loss (%), total soluble solid (°Brix), titratable acidity (%), pH, disease incidence (%), disease index (%), maintained Firmness (N) and prolonged shelf-life of fruits compared with untreated control. It was concluded that edible coatings used in the present study have a good potential in maintaining the fruit quality and beeswax at 2% being the most effective treatment on all parameters tested.

Mitoxantrone and Analogues Bind and Stabilize i-Motif Forming DNA Sequences.

There are hundreds of ligands which can interact with G-quadruplex DNA, yet very few which target i-motif. To appreciate an understanding between the dynamics between these structures and how they can be affected by intervention with small molecule ligands, more i-motif binding compounds are required. Herein we describe how the drug mitoxantrone can bind, induce folding of and stabilise i-motif forming DNA sequences, even at physiological pH. Additionally, mitoxantrone was found to bind i-motif forming sequences preferentially over double helical DNA. We also describe the stabilisation properties of analogues of mitoxantrone. This offers a new family of ligands with potential for use in experiments into the structure and function of i-motif forming DNA sequences.

Influence of the host plant on occluded virus production and lethal infectivity of a baculovirus.

Intra- and inter-specific effects of cotton, soybean, and clover on the time until death of Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) and Heliothis virescens (F.) larvae lethally infected with H. zea nucleopolyhedrovirus (HzSNPV) were evaluated in the laboratory. In the first test, on second instar only, the time until death of lethally infected larvae of both species differed with the plant tissues (vegetative or reproductive) and plant species. The total viral activity produced per larva in LC(50) units (occluded viral bodies (OBs) per larva/LC(50) in OBs/mm(2) of diet surface) was greater from H. virescens larvae fed vegetative than reproductive tissues of all host plants, but from H. zea virus production was greater only when fed vegetative tissue of soybean. In a second test that compared second and fourth instar H. virescens on cotton, total viral activity from larvae treated in both instars was greater when fed vegetative than reproductive tissues. Results of these tests suggest that the ability of host plants to influence baculovirus disease is more complex than previously believed. When examining the epizootic potential of a baculovirus, more attention must be given to the effects of the host plant on the insect-virus interactions.